When The Devil Calls

Chapter Five: The Loss of Competition

Alina refused to see everyone.

She remained in the isolated parts of her tent, unable to sleep or stomach the idea of food. Her eyes remained heavy and bloodshot from so many hours of mental torture. Muscles in her body ached for the cot. Its heavenly softness comforted the ails of the wilderness from her tired body.

Still, she refused herself everything.

It was a punishment on her own accord for being so angry. The words that escaped her lips and the actions that followed filled her with pure awfulness.

Despite, the transgression of General Kirigan's – it was important to regard him as such since they were no longer anything personal – past, she knew there was a place in her heart to forgive it. His story that she used to wound him was not fabricated, or, the regret in his eye was not. When they beheld the fountain with the story – his story – etched in the stone, the emotion was real. He wanted to destroy the Fold. She believed it with all her heart. Time. If Baghra had given her time, Alina would have made him realize it was the only way to protect their Grisha brethren.

But no.

She was pulled away from him by the emotions of others, of the past, of everything she used to be.

But she was not that girl. That scared girl that trembled in the idea of being Grisha, made herself weak to suppress the power within her, all to fit into a world that decided she did not belong. That Alina was gone.

The moment a ball of light appeared between her hands, the Alina of the past died. Never to return.

Yet, in the back of her mind, she mourned the loss of an old life that was not completely happy but was all that she knew. It was normal. How much she longed to touch the time behind. Mal brought it all back. The image of them running away, together, hand in hand, reminded her of the days of childhood when they were nameless faces. She ran away with the belief that time might reverse.

Only...she loved herself as Alina Starkov, the one and only, sun summoner, opposite General Kirigan.

General Kirigan, she loved more.

Alina allowed herself to cry into her lap. She laid in the corner tucked into a round ball and cried for the future she had lost. All that might have been...

What of their own child? The product of her womb carried a timeline she was certain no one – not even Kirigan – considered. She carried on the bloodline that was his.

Panic ripped through her heart at the thought of what might happen now that she was no longer favored. Would he have the child killed? No one would dare harm an infant, especially a Grisha. It was too foul to consider. Aleksander believed in bonds and fate. He would cherish a child that was of his own likeness and ability; an empire of himself to further aid his agenda of protecting the Grisha. If anything, he'd take the child for his own and leave Alina behind somewhere.

Saints, she could not think of a worse fate than being parted from a being she created within her own loins.

She touched the soft swell of her belly. It looked like bloat than a carrier of life belly.

"Please remember me," she whispered. "And how much I love you." Her voice waivered to produce the words, "a-a-and your father."

Sleep came to her sometime in the darkness. It happened so suddenly that she awoke on the floor in confusion as to what she was doing there.

Her breasts were especially tender that morning. She groaned as she placed a heavy purple kefta on her shoulders. It rubbed just in the way that made it a noticeable ache. And growth. The stretch of her kefta at the chest was noticeable in her shoulders where the fabric pulled.